


Ponder

by Gylfie109



Series: Lost In The Ebb And Flow Of The Tide [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Codependency, Nonbinary Character, Past Abuse, Past Lives, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Love, sad thoughts, thoughts on another character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:20:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27225685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gylfie109/pseuds/Gylfie109
Summary: Thoughts on the kids past lives, the good and the bad, and how they ended up the way they are.Not a standalone! Read Wayfarer to understand this!
Relationships: Original Male Character & Original Female Character
Series: Lost In The Ebb And Flow Of The Tide [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1713016
Kudos: 5





	Ponder

His older sister is strange. 

She is strange with her violence, her contradictions, her love, her  _ everything.  _ There is nothing normal about Nakamura Suzuki, and perhaps he would never truly understand her, but that’s just the way he liked her.

He doesn’t understand how she so easily slipped from  _ Madison Grant, _ the person who couldn’t go a day without letting out some god awful shrieking noise that grated on his ears and couldn’t make decisions if their life depended on it, to  _ Nakamura Suzuki,  _ a strangely violent woman who made too many decisions and was only actually loud when she was cursing you out or laughing.

Her laughter is a nice change now though. It was hard to see her be so lonely, longing for friends too far from her reach, and angry at the world for secrets she swore she’d rather take to the grave than ever speak of them again. She didn’t laugh much before, not until  _ He _ left and she could finally breathe as the weight of the world was lifted from her aching shoulders. 

When she did laugh, he could tell it was fake. But he never said anything, too emotionally stunted, most of their family had said.

If only they could see him now.

No, her laugh now is much more pleasant and not as heavy with guilt. He likes it much better this way.

She thought his life was worth more than all the riches in the world, and there was nothing he could do to return the sentiment.

It’ll have to be enough, all the training to be a doctor specifically just for her. It has to be. He doesn’t know what he’d do if it wasn’t. 

He doesn’t understand how she could change so much from the person who although they regularly threatened violence at the slightest inconvenience, they never thought of actually carrying the threat out. 

Or actually, he does. He remembers finding the knives hidden in the bathroom, just in her reach. He remembers hearing her yell at their parents and grandparents that they couldn’t fix her  _ ‘Bathroom problems _ ’ because they didn’t exist, that she had spent so much time in the bathroom because it was the only place in their home that she truly felt safe. She knew that even her safe space wasn’t safe because just outside the door, there was a wolf waiting for her. And he knew how to get in.

He wishes that he could have been a safe place for her, but he never tells her this. How could he, when he knows that the only reason she even managed to get that far was her determination to make sure he was safe.Maybe that’s why her relationship with Chiasa,  _ Aryonna  _ , is more lighthearted and she isn’t as dependent on the younger girl as she is with him.

He hopes she knows just how loved she is. He doesn’t have the words to tell her properly.

He knows just how important family and friends are to her, and he wonders why she didn’t cry for the parents who had raised them in this life. They were practically the perfect parents, and while he knows she loved her old family, they weren’t exactly….. healthy. 

Her father lived halfway across the province, with Chiasa and their other siblings, and she hardly ever actually got to see him. Their mother leaned too heavily on her, dumping all of her problems on his older sister who took it all in stride even as her back threatened to break under the pressure. Grandparents putting too much pressure on her to finish training and get a job, even as she repeatedly told them off for pushing when she wasn’t ready.

So, he wonders. He doesn’t think he’ll get an answer for that one.

He wonders about how a person can be so lonely when they are so surrounded by love. He discards that thought as soon as he thinks it. That’s something he knows all too well.

He wonders how she can give out affection so easily after all the world has thrown at her. How she can cling to just about everyone in the village when before she’d flinch if someone hugged her without warning. He wonders how she can just shrug off a stab wound when before she couldn’t stop the tears when their younger sibling accidentally dislocated her pinkie and index fingers.

He knows that he wouldn’t have been strong enough to survive in this world without her, without her constantly pushing herself and him to new heights every day. He knows that he would have been the same emotionally inept, socially awkward man as he was in his past life. At least, he hopes he’s changed. It’s hard to tell sometimes.

He wonders how she went from loudly proclaiming that she was not a  _ ‘she’ _ , they were a  _ ‘them’  _ and not tolerating being misgendered, to being this quiet person who put on a brave face and made practical excuses for the alterations they made to their body, insisting that they are a girl when he can see the way smiles become strained every time the word ‘She’ is uttered in reference to  _ them. _

He knows they would yell at him for that, so he supposes he’ll stick to calling her both until they say otherwise. After all, no matter what they decide on, they will always be his older sibling, male, female, both or neither. They may be strange, but that’s just who they are.

He loves them either way.


End file.
